Trucking's emissions deregulation outlook for 2026

While the new federal administration has been ramping up enforcement of some driver standards, deregulation is still a major part of Trump 2.0's agenda. For fleets, that deregulation is in the powertrain.

The Trump administration this year will continue its work to loosen emissions standards. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has several projects to relax emissions requirements.

Both lawmakers and agencies are combating states' emissions authority, where the primary battleground is California: Lawmakers helped repeal emissions waivers granted to California, while EPA criticized the state's smog check program.

EPA's new leadership has made clear that it intends to roll back its own environmental regulations to support businesses, and for trucking businesses, the key topics are Heavy-Duty NOx and the 2009 endangerment finding.

Yet-unannounced changes to Heavy-Duty NOx

For the Heavy-Duty NOx rule, EPA signaled that it would likely reduce costly portions of the regulation—however, the exact changes are still unannounced at this time.

What we know so far: EPA recently shared that the rule would maintain its much more stringent NOx rules—from 200 mg to 35 mg per horsepower-hour. The agency will also keep the rule's timeline, effective for 2027 model-year trucks.

That leaves only a few avenues for EPA to reduce the regulation's cost. Many industry experts suspect that the agency will lower the rule's warranty obligations.

“Reading between the lines, that seems like they might try to do some things on the warranty obligations that manufacturers have to meet that wouldn’t affect actual production but may help lower some of the costs to the ultimate truck purchasers," Prasad Sharma, partner with Scopelitis Law Firm, told FleetOwner.

EPA’s changes to the NOx rule could be announced as soon as this spring.

Repealing all greenhouse gas regulations

A much wider-reaching act that the EPA is preparing is the revocation of all vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations.

EPA is working to publish a final rule that proposes to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding and all its subsequent vehicle GHG standards.

The endangerment finding is a landmark document that underpins all greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles. Following a command by the Supreme Court to investigate the class of emissions, EPA in 2009 released the document, which recognized public health dangers from the effects of global GHG pollution.

The agency released the proposed rule in July that would repeal that endangerment finding as well as all vehicle GHG standards. The rule, if successfully executed, would mean significant changes for manufacturers' regulatory burdens. It likely would not translate to a direct drop in equipment prices for fleets.

The agency submitted a final rule draft to the Office of Management and Budget in early January. The final rule could reach the federal register soon; however, it will face fierce legal battles, leaving its fate yet uncertain for many months after.

“It will be challenged however it comes out,” Sharma said. “I think environmental groups are going to be the ones challenging this, and there will be a coalition of states that will challenge it.”